In the shooting season of 1821, a fashionably dressed young man applied to sir Robert Baker for a license to kill—not game, but thieves. This curious application was made in the most serious and business-like manner imaginable. “Can I be permitted to speak a few words to you, sir?” said the applicant. “Certainly, sir,” replied sir Robert. “Then I wish to ask you, sir, whether, if I am attacked by thieves in the streets or roads, I should be justified in using fire-arms against them, and putting them to death?” Sir Robert Baker replied, that every man had a right to defend himself from robbers in the best manner he could; but at the same time he would not be justified in using fire-arms, except in cases of the utmost extremity. “Oh! I am very much obliged to you, sir; and I can be furnished at this office with a license to carry arms for that purpose?” The answer, of course, was given in the negative, though not without a good deal of surprise at such a question, and the inquirer bowed and withdrew.
The first of September.
Here the rude clamour of the sportsman’s joy,
The gun fast-thundering, and the winded horn,
Would tempt the muse to sing the rural game:
How, in his mid-career, the spaniel struck,
Stiff, by the tainted gale, with open nose,
Out-stretched, and finely sensible, draws full,
Fearful, and cautious, on the latent prey;
As in the sun the circling covey bask
Their varied plumes, and watchful every way
Through the rough stubble turn the secret eye.
Caught in the meshy snare, in vain they beat
Their idle wings, entangled more and more:
Nor on the surges of the boundless air,
Though borne triumphant, are they safe; the gun,
Glanc’d just, and sudden, from the fowler’s eye,
O’ertakes their sounding pinions; and again,
Immediate brings them from the towering wing,
Dead to the ground: or drives them wide-dispers’d,
Wounded, and wheeling various, down the wind.
These are not subjects for the peaceful muse,
Nor will she stain with such her spotless song;
Then most delighted, when she social sees
The whole mix’d animal creation round
Alive, and happy. ’Tis not joy to her,
This falsely-cheerful barbarous game of death
This rage of pleasure, which the restless youth
Awakes impatient, with the gleaming morn;
When beasts of prey retire, that all night long,
Urg’d by necessity, had rang’d the dark,
As if their conscious ravage shunn’d the light,
Asham’d. Not so the steady tyrant man,
Who with the thoughtless insolence of power
Inflam’d, beyond the most infuriate wrath
Of the worst monster that e’er roam’d the waste,
For sport alone pursues the cruel chase,
Amid the beamings of the gentle days.
Upbraid, ye ravening tribes, our wanton rage,
For hunger kindles you, and lawless want;
But lavish fed, in nature’s bounty roll’d,
To joy at anguish, and delight in blood,
Is what your horrid bosoms never knew.
So sings the muse of “The Seasons” on the one side; on the other, we have “the lay of the last minstrel” in praise of “Fowling,” the “rev. John Vincent, B. A. curate of Constantine, Cornwall,” whose “passion for rural sports, and the beauties of nature,” gave birth to “a poem where nature and sport were to be the only features of the picture,” and wherein he thus describes.
Full of th’ expected sport my heart beats high,
And with impatient step I haste to reach
The stubbles, where the scatter’d ears afford
A sweet repast to the yet heedless game.
How my brave dogs o’er the broad furrows bound,
Quart’ring their ground exactly. Ah! that point
Answers my eager hopes, and fills my breast
With joy unspeakable. How close they lie!
Whilst to the spot with steady pace I tend.
Now from the ground with noisy wing they burst,
And dart away. My victim singled out,
In his aërial course falls short, nor skims
Th’ adjoining hedge o’er which the rest unhurt
Have pass’d. Now let us from that lofty hedge
Survey with heedful eye the country round;
That we may bend our course once more to meet
The scatter’d covey: for no marker waits
Upon my steps, though hill and valley here,
With shrubby copse, and far extended brake
Of high-grown furze, alternate rise around.
Inviting is the view,—far to the right
In rows of dusky green, potatoes stretch,
With turnips mingled of a livelier hue.
Towards the vale, fenc’d by the prickly furze
That down the hill irregularly slopes,
Upwards they seem’d to fly; nor is their flight
Long at this early season. Let us beat,
With diligence and speed restrain’d, the ground,
Making each circuit good.
Near yonder hedge-row where high grass and ferns
The secret hollow shade, my pointers stand.
How beautiful they look! with outstretch’d tails,
With heads immovable and eyes fast fix’d,
One fore-leg rais’d and bent, the other firm,
Advancing forward, presses on the ground!
Convolv’d and flutt’ring on the blood stain’d earth,
The partridge lies:—thus one by one they fall,
Save what with happier fate escape untouch’d,
And o’er the open fields with rapid speed
To the close shelt’ring covert wing their way.
When to the hedge-rows thus the birds repair,
Most certain is our sport; but oft in brakes
So deep they lie, that far above our head
The waving branches close, and vex’d we hear
The startled covey one by one make off.
Now may we visit some remoter ground;
My eager wishes are insatiate yet,
And end but with the sun.
Yet happy he,
Who ere the noontide beams inflame the skies,
Has bagg’d the spoil; with lighter step he treads,
Nor faints so fast beneath the scorching ray.
The morning hours well spent, should mighty toil
Require some respite, he content can seek
Th’ o’er-arching shade, or to the friendly farm
Betake him, where with hospitable hand
His simple host brings forth the grateful draught
Of honest home-brew’d beer, or cider cool.
Such friendly treatment may each fowler find
Who never violates the farmer’s rights,
Nor with injurious violence, invades
His fields of standing corn. Let us forbear
Such cruel wrong, though on the very verge
Of the high waving field our days should point.